


A New Dream

by xxace



Category: One Piece
Genre: Eventual Romance, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mentions of Suicide, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23465266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxace/pseuds/xxace
Summary: All she wanted was peace and quiet. How the hell did she end up waking from death ten different times?
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	1. what happened?

She opens her eyes to the skies of an island unknown to her, ears ringing and her entire body aching in pain. She notes the numb feeling in some parts as she tries to move her stiff joints. A loud groan escapes through dry lips.

The angry rays of the sun hit her face. She tries to block its clear view but her attention focuses sharply on her arm, eyebrows knitting together at how dry and lumpy it looks.

What once used to be an inked covered masterpiece, an angry mangled limb greets her instead. She’s careful in lowering it down beside her, wincing as it makes contact with the sand.

Exhaustion runs deep beneath her bones as she stares at clear skies above her, a dull ache settling under her skin.

Scrambled thoughts and broken memories are offered to her as comfort. It did little to ease the pain.

Lying down on the sand, soaking in the calm morning sky, she desperately seeks any hint of recognition of the world around her.

Nothing comes.

She doesn’t remember.

Sitting up, she sees a small dinghy, lodged weirdly into the sand in front of her. She figures it’s hers. Her brain screams at her to check it out.

Without wasting any more time, the girl carefully stands and dusts herself off. She notes how the burns on her skin spans the entirety of her right side.

She can't feel any pain there. It's gonna take months to heal.

She'll deal with it later.

The girl walks to the boat to see if she has any belongings, or if it contains any clues as to what happened to her.

A pristine curved sword lay inside. She recognizes her prized possession.

The girl grabs the katana and ties its cord across her torso, securely placing the weapon on her back. The action brings a sense of stability to her and eases the throbbing in her head.

She takes a deep breath.

The noise of life booms not far from her, the ringing in her ear replaced by it.

Deciding that there was nothing else for her at sea, she grabs the remaining valuables from the boat–torn maps, ripped clothes and a single empty locket, all within an old sack–and she sluggishly makes her way to the city.

Standing there, doing nothing but looking like a lost child grated her nerves. Doing nothing made her feel useless.

Her heavy steps meet concrete and determined eyes scans the bustling crowd before her.

Maybe she can get answers there.

* * *

Many people look to her as she walks the busy paths of the unknown town. She doesn’t recognize anything around her nor anyone she sees. It seems no one knows her either, but fear and confusion are etched on passing faces.

She wanders aimlessly for a few hours.

Licking her lips, she scans the food stalls that litter the streets she walks. Her stomach betrays her but she thinks little of it against her rising headache.

_I'll worry about food another time._

Deciding to go back to shore after nothing sparks in her brain, the girl retraces her steps.

Something catches her eye.

There, in what seems to be in the heart of town. An execution platform.

She may not remember much but she knows exactly what that is. She’s sure she's seen far too many in her lifetime.

It made her uneasy.

She didn’t know why but every instinct in her body screamed for her to run. She also has the strangest feeling looking at the platform, making her nauseous.

She comes closer.

People walk and talk around her, their eyes trailing her every movement, but she pays them no mind. It only worsens as she heads toward her destination.

Noticing the blatant evasion and whispers that surround her, her steps falter. They get louder.

She catches sight of a man pulling a young child as far away from her as possible, as if she’s death coming for the kid’s soul.

This irritates her.

Stopping and taking a few deep breaths, she rids of her rising annoyance. She looks to the skies, feeling the sun’s rays hitting her skin.

Why does it feel like she’s burning up?

She stands in front of the wooden structure and sees faint marks of dried blood running down it’s aged form. Her eyes widen as she slowly remembers. A memory of a day fills her head. It was… sunny then too.

A flash of red catches her eye.

The girl turns her head, glancing at a red haired woman a few feet away from her. She stands under the shade of a building. _She’s looking at me._

Weirdly, the girl couldn’t help but examine the stranger, who in turn does the same to her.

The woman was battered and bruised all over. Mottled scars and dried blood envelop an entire side of her body. Some areas of it still look to be an angry vivid pink, while other parts mellow into a splotchy shade much darker than her skin tone.

She looks to be one of hell’s own.

Under all the gunk, the girl can see that the woman has layers of ink on her. Her eyes fixate on a small horned creature peeking through old bandages on her shoulder. She didn’t like the way the stranger looks at her in disgust.

Giving another look over, she takes note of the tense muscles showing through the woman’s ripped clothes. A shiver runs down her spine at the growing hostility aimed at her. Deep crimson hair dances with the small breeze.

The girl shifts her stance, trying to get rid of the tenseness in her shoulders.

_Who the hell are you?_

She walks up to the woman and confronts her without knowing why. She feels pure, unadulterated rage.

Pity sings in the back of her mind.

The closer she gets to the broken woman in front of her, the more resentful the girl becomes.

She can’t understand the woman’s tired stare.

The girl hates how weak the woman seems.

Eye to eye with each other, the enraged girl levels the woman with a look, acutely aware of the unsheathed sword on the woman's left, scabbard seemingly thrown to the right. The woman’s fist clenches tightly on to the red and white hilt. They hold each other’s glare.

Tears fall from the woman’s eyes as the girl swings her sword. Steel connects with glass.

Shards fall around her and she hears a man yell at her from behind. She doesn’t understand what he said though, for all she can hear are her loud, uncontrolled sobs.

“Aryah,” she whimpers, desperation clawing at her skin. “What happened?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has been rotting in my computer for months now and quarantine is slowly getting to me. I hope you guys enjoy my OC's adventure with everyone's favorite crew!


	2. where are you?

She doesn’t know where she is still. She's on a bed, though. It's stiff.

Aryah sighs.

She woke up somewhere unknown again, and she's getting tired of feeling like a lost little lamb looking for the rest of its herd. All she wanted was to get back home. She misses her family.

Her eyes roam around the room she’s in, and cream colored walls that weren’t painted evenly greets her from every corner. Some exposed bricks peek from patches on the wall and brown stains run down from top to bottom. Aryah feels acid coming up to her throat looking at the state of the room.

Other than the utter filth, the room holds no personality whatsoever.

No frames hang from the walls, not even nails to indicate there ever has been. A closet is parallel to her and from its open doors it seems that it’s been empty for some time now. The single bed, the table beside it, and a lone chair is what accompanies her in this miserable time. She wonders for a moment if some creep actually took her to their secret lair to do some freaky shit to her, but the fresh bandages on her arm and legs says otherwise.

The empty room spins as she tries to sit up. Gravity pulls her back down. It was only then she started feeling her entire body numbing in pain, forcing her eyes shut. Her heart beats a million miles a second. A loud groan escapes her lips.

Taking another sigh, she resorted to glaring at the flaking, yellow stained ceiling that seems to be cursing at both their states. It swallows her whole.

Aryah clicks her tongue.

She tries to collect her scrambled brain, only for loud muffled voices pull her out of her concentration.

They’re coming from outside the room.

Not a moment later, a stream of strangers come flooding in seemingly arguing about something. Some of them seem to have noticed she was awake and listening in.

Aryah strains to hear what they're saying but she couldn't make sense of it all. She doesn’t understand the language they speak.

_Where the hell did I end up?_

Slowly, she cranes her neck, her eyes following the trail of hushed whispers and frantic tones from the other side of the room. She focuses on them.

_Maybe they can help me find my family._

Scanning the crowd near her, she takes note of the weird way they move.

A good lot of the people there seem to use their hands a lot when speaking. From the tone of their voices, the more emotional they are, the more they move their limbs.

Others seem to convey just as much emotion with only their lips. A single inflection on their tones brings an interesting array of reactions from those that listen to them.

And their faces.

So much raw _everything_ there. They’re easy to read, despite not knowing what they’re saying.

It’s different from how she spoke in her previous life. Waking up, it took her years to become fluent in the way they communicated.

_Wait._

_Previous life?_

_That’s right, we don’t communicate like that._ No one _communicated like that._

She panics.

It should’ve been the first thing she noticed. The life she lived; they didn’t have words.

_This one does._

The life she so viciously fought for and lived for wasn’t like this. They didn’t have mouths. They communicated through their eyes. Every single emotion that coursed through her veins were seen and felt through the windows of their soul.

Her family’s eyes were what kept her alive. Her wife’s shimmering onyx orbs were her everything. Her son’s wide and innocent blues were her lifeline.

And now they’re gone.

They’re not in this world. _She’s_ not in their world anymore.

_I died again._

Aryah wants to scream.

_I thought I did everything right?_

Her heart is breaking.

_I thought I was done._

She starts crying.

_Why am I still waking up?_

Her mind is breaking.

* * *

The tense group noticed the hyperventilating girl. She kept muttering about nonsense things when she slumbered, but now she lies still in her bed, a wide distant look in her frightened eyes. Tears stream down her face.

They look to each other, questioning what their next step is. Many of them stammer and stutter on their words, others silent. No one can give a solid plan.

Strange words come out of the strange woman’s mouth again. They’re not familiar with her dialect.

None of them knew what to do at this point until one of them move towards her. He has a determined, but curious look on his face.

* * *

Aryah snaps out of her turmoil when she senses someone approach her. She starts rising from her bed. She may have lost in this twisted game of death again but that doesn’t mean she gets to give up. She can’t afford to give up. She’s lost too fucking much already from the lives she’s lived.

Ready for a fight, Aryah gears to incapacitate the man beside her, only for his hand to grip onto her bandaged arm. The man levels her a menacing look. “I don't think that's very smart of you to do right now.”

… _what?_

“I–” Her voice raspy from disuse (or overuse?). A flash of her broken reflection, screaming in anguish, hits her like a twelve-ton truck. “I–”

“All this must be confusing to ya but believe me, seein’ a beat up woman yellin' bloody murder in the middle of town square was even more so.”

The man pushes her back down, adjusting her pillows so she could face him proper. He pulls the chair to her bedside, crossing his legs. Eyes never leaving her.

She _hates_ how weak she is right now.

“So,” he claps his hands, “how 'bout you tell me what's up before I call marine officials on you, hm?”

She didn't know what to say.

No, scratch that. She didn’t want to _talk_.

But she was stunned that she can understand him.

No, scratch that again. _He_ was speaking in _her_ original language.

He’s speaking English _._

_What the fuck?_

None of what she sees around her makes sense. Nothing is clicking in her brain.

“Well?”

Aryah glares at the man, face clearly saying ‘shut the fuck up.’ He backs down.

She gathers her memories and a sliver was offered to her. The last thing she saw before dying was the gun pointed at her head. How or why that happened was lost on her.

And the voice. _“Keep looking,”_ it said.

_Who was that?_

She tries to sit up again, this time swatting the hand that stopped her earlier, eyes daring the man to say a fucking word. His jaw drops slightly open at her brazen attitude.

He quickly recovers, however, as the woman in front him continues to mull over her thoughts. Face contorting into that ugly mangled mess he first saw her doing when she was brought to his clinic.

The movement is irritating the burns on her right, especially around her eyes. He’s clicking his tongue.

Aryah sees the man giving her a look over. He confuses her too.

Intimidating and commanding, but fake.

_How can he talk like me?_

“You're looking a 'lil more constipated there than I like.” The man frowns. “You hurtin' somewhere?”

Shaking her head, Aryah tries to speak again despite the rough protest her throat gives. “You.”

_She’ll figure out how._

The man quirks an eyebrow, but she cuts him off before he could talk. “Name?”

He gives her a surprised look before letting out a deep laugh. Her face scrunches as he wipes small tears forming in his eyes.

_This fucking–_

Irritated, she throws a pillow at him while questioning, “funny?”

“Nah, no. Not laughin' at ya,” he reassures her. “Just amused.”

Aryah decides she doesn't like this man. At all.

“Hey, don't give me that face." He muses. “Name's Masaru, you?”

_Like I’m gonna fucking give you a name._

“Whe–” her eyes widen as her question catches in her throat. She hacks from the unbearable state her vocals are in.

She sees Masaru giving her a blank stare before he barks to one of the forgotten persons behind him in the foreign language she heard earlier.

_Wait a minute..._

Since waking up from the beach she finally recognizes something, even if it’s just a language she doesn’t understand. But she can’t pinpoint what language it was. And it sounds different. Like it shouldn't sound like the way they make it sound.

A glass appears in front of her when she finishes her coughing fit.

“Here. Should help.”

Aryah looks at him with questioning eyes. She may not know what they did to her when she slept–and that's a fault all on its own, but she's not stupid enough to take his offer.

Whatever the hell they put in there she’s not ingesting before someone else does.

Masaru seems to have figured what her scowl was for, so he poured a little of the liquid into his palm and drank it. He also rubbed the rim of the glass with his shirt to show the deranged woman she was mistaken.

“It's just water.”

A few beats pass, her throat still burning, Aryah reaches for the glass. She devours the drink, spilling from the corners of her mouth as soon as her lips touched it. Masaru clicks his tongue again, in disgust. “Easy, will ya?”

Aryah takes a deep breath after she finishes, her throat seeming to clear up a little. She wipes her mouth with her arm as she passes the glass back to the man before her.

“Did you just–” he sighs.

With a wave of his hand another one of the people lurking on the other side of the room leaves in a hurry, quickly coming back with a small basin, some bandages, and what appears to be a set of clothes.

They settle the basin on her bedside table.

Aryah can still feel the scratchiness of her throat but she pushes through her discomfort trying not to sound like a 2-year-old talking. “Don't need that.”

Masaru ignores her. He reaches for her arm, Aryah automatically flinching away from him, only to be firmly held once he caught it.

“You just wiped your dirty face on your bandages,” he says, waving the washcloth in front of her. “Trust me, you need this.”

She watches as he carefully unwraps her bandages and inspects her burns.

This is the first time she’s seeing her arm under all the blood, dirt, and sand that covered her on the beach. She wonders how the woman she’s now inhabiting got them. She also wonders if this is how the woman died.

Seemingly satisfied with what Masaru saw he gently dabs a wet cloth to her arm, removing any leftover gunk from wherever the hell it came from. She feels _slightly_ grateful to him. _Just slightly. I could’ve done it myself._

Her stubbornness fights with her.

Aryah gives him a small thanks. Her brain yells at her.

She introduces herself. “It's Aryah. My name.”

Masaru hums as he continues to unwrap the rest of her bandages. Someone, in the corner of her eye, jerks and gags at the sight of her exposed side. She supposes, she _does_ look unsightly in her state.

Thinking back to her reflection, she wonders why her brain didn’t connect that she wasn’t herself anymore. From a freakishly tall, sinewy stature that sports silk-like skin with a purplish hue in her previous life, the person she’s inhabiting now is of average height and defined build, tanned with cuts and scars littering her face and body. Aryah remembers how her right eye seems to have a strange hue to it, dark but a white film covers it. It explains her screwed perception. She guesses she got it from whatever barbequed her.

Continuing her own inspection of her body, her unoccupied hand reaches for her head. Rather than the yellow tendrils that sat atop her crown once, she now has short, dark crimson hair that, in her opinion, needs some kind of deep wash judging from the way it sticks to her face and how in feels under her palm. She winces in disgust.

Masaru, without lifting his head, scolds Aryah. "You're moving too much."

She spares him a glare, ignoring how he just clicked his tongue and missing the knowing look on his face.

Giving one last look over, twisting and turning, intricate tattoos cover most of her arms and back from what she can see. Masaru pats her impatiently as Aryah recalls the weird creature-like on her shoulder that first caught her eye. She feels the need to roll her shoulders now.

“So, what happened Aryah?” Masaru asks her, careful in tone.

As if slowly shedding a layer of himself as he wraps her arm and leg with new bandages, he continues. “What got you all bloody and yellin’ at yourself for?”

“I don't know,” Aryah admits. “I don't remember much.”

Masaru raises a brow at her. “That doesn’t really help your case, y’know.”

She shrugs. Deciding that maybe getting locked up (for good) in this life would be a nice change from her previous ones.

“You a pirate?” Masaru asks.

_A pirate? The hell?_

“I’m not really sure. All I know is,” she gestures to her face with her empty hand, “this isn’t my face.”

Masaru looks at her for a moment, as if confirming exactly who she is, or _what_ she is.

He then turns to their audience and speaks once more.

 _In that language again_.

He seems to have told them to leave the room, as one by one leave in a hurry. She sees him relax a little.

As the last person reaches the door, they bow to the two left inside saying their farewell before closing the door. Something clicks in her brain. A throbbing in her head comes full force. There’s pressure in the back of her eyes. _Were they speaking Japanese?_

Desperation claws at her throat.

“Am I in–,” she takes a breath, having trouble getting the oxygen she needs.

She can’t breathe.

Aryah tries again, but nothing comes out. Her caretaker, tense at what's happening to her. 

"Aryah, look at me. Follow my breathing."

_I can't._

He stands to reposition her, but she grabs his arm and gives shallow breaths. Looking at him with hopeful eyes she asks, “Masaru, is this Japan?”

_Am I back on Earth?_

_Home?_

Masaru freezes, staring at her being. He gives her a melancholy look and carefully shakes his head, bringing her hands back to her sides. He wanted to ease her into this but-- “No. This isn't Earth.”

Aryah looks at him as if he grew two heads, dejection seeping through her skin. “Then… how can I–”

“Ever heard of One Piece?”

Her face contorts even more, but recognition was evident on her eyes. She wants to scream at the man in front of her.

_What was going on?_

Masaru takes a deep breath, now firmly holding Aryah’s shaking form.

“This is Pink Point Island. You're in the Grand Line.”

* * *

_The Grand Line._

It’s been a while since Aryah heard of those string of words. She’s lived too many lives to even bother thinking about those seas.

_One Piece._

The series she used to watch growing up. She picked it up again in her high school days. Where did she leave off? She’s not remembering it at the moment. Maybe it’ll come to her later. It _should_ come back.

 _This is the Grand_ fucking _Line._

Twenty years of her life. Twenty. They were what kept youth and optimism within her despite the struggles and pain that greeted her each morning she woke up. It used to hold a place in her heart. Until her heart couldn’t bear to love anymore.

 _I’m in One_ fucking _Piece._

There’s only a raging turmoil of hate, disbelief, anger, and sadness within her now that she can’t even _bring_ herself to focus on Masaru, who’s trying to pull her back into reality. Her new reality.

_The story of hopes and friends and dreams._

She was twenty-seven when she killed herself. It’s been years since she last picked up a chapter. Aryah thinks it was around Dressrosa when she stopped reading.

Are they happy? Where are they in their adventure here? Have they reached their dreams?

Does it even matter?

_I gave up on mine long ago._

Why bring her here?

_I just wanted to die._


	3. what will you do?

**Three Weeks Later**

**Funk Beach, Pink Point Island**

“How many lives you lived so far?"

Aryah soaks in the warmth of the sun, her toes curling into the sand. The sound of the ocean refreshes her. She’s always loved the open seas.

She didn’t want to answer Masaru’s question but how else is she supposed to learn her way in this new world if she was going to shut him out?

“Five, I think? I don't know, everything got blurry after the second life.”

He cocks her head at this. “How long do you spend in each one?”

“About thirty years or so, on average. Longest one, I got to my late eighties. Woke up in it when the person died as a teen.”

“Damn. That’s an actual lifetime.” He gestures for her to sit after setting up a makeshift blanket of sorts from their jackets. “And five lives? I quit after my third life.”

Aryah gingerly sits beside him, careful not to get too much sand on her bandages. “What do you mean?”

Masaru gives her a knowing look, unbelieving that she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “The whole tryin’ to leave my mark thing.”

She gives him a soft hum, nodding to what he’s trying to say. It’s exactly what she tried doing in her first “death wake up.”

After killing herself in her original life, Aryah woke up in a white cell looking much different than what she used to. She thought she’d finally gone insane.

Caged like an animal with claws for arms and spikes coming out of every inch of green skin was a sight to see for her first reincarnation.

After an onset of panic attacks subsided and a fit of rage let out in the first few hours of her apparently new life, Aryah got to thinking what exactly was going on with her.

She wasn’t much of a believer in gods or demons in her original life, so heaven and hell weren’t what first came to mind. A coma wasn’t likely either, then again she never really experienced being in a coma before. Maybe drugs? That one was quickly wiped out of her mind when a loud siren rang in the cell. Her prison opened up with a creature not much different from her. They beckoned her to follow.

Long story short, she thought she was the main character in that little rebellion story she was thrown into.

She wasn’t.

But that didn’t stop her from thinking that maybe, _just maybe_ , she had a purpose to fulfill in every life she lived; a mark to leave behind. So she never stopped trying.

Masaru pulls her from her trip down memory lane. He was playing with the sand in front of them, writing something with a stick he found. “It ain't really worth the effort, dying in a life not yours.”

Her brows furrowed. He takes a peek at her face and gives a sad smile.

“An alternate life's a life lived without us. We weren’t rebirthed. All this shit,” he gestures wildly in front of him, “happened already, or _are_ happening in a way they just are. Not because of us, but of the people born in it.

“ _We_ weren't born here. We ain’t _from_ here. We’re just hijacking someone else’s dead body.” His whole posture sags from resignation. “Can't really change what's not yours.”

 _What’s not yours_.

All her loved ones flashed through her eyes.

Her wife and son smiles at her in her memory of them.

_They weren’t mine._

“Speakin’ of not ours. How’d you live life before?”

Aryah still can't get used to how fast Masaru's thoughts race. “Huh?” 

“Your original life, one we were born in. You don’t know your meat suit’s life story, what about your real one?”

She hesitates. She's not really sure if she wants to remember it.

Masaru cocks an eyebrow and nudges her with an elbow, “Alright, alright. Still don't trust me yeah,” she was about to protest but he kept going, “I'll go first then.”

He stands up, giving her a hand. Aryah gives him a quizzical look.

“Let's walk. I'm tired o' sitting.” Clear in his eyes he just wants something else to fidget with than the stick.

She chuckles at his impatience and stands on her own, dusting herself off. Masaru picks up her sword and places it on his back, still waiting for her hand. She, in turn, grabs the rest of their stuff and shoves it in her backpack. Masaru kept blowing air through his nose as she painfully slows down her movements in every other task she does.

Finally, Aryah places her hand into his, grateful for the warmth he gave off. It's been a habit of theirs to hold one another whenever they talk of their past lives or nightmares.

"Let's see, I guess I should just make ya fall for me, yeah? Stops you from doin’ anythin’ stupid." He smirks at her as she gives him a playful shove. She already took back what she said some weeks ago about not liking his person, but that doesn’t mean she’s planning on falling in love with this idiot.

"Kidding. Okay, describe myself. Well, I'm Japanese, duh."

Aryah rolls her eyes at that. "You could've easily changed your name and learn the language here like I am."

"True, but for real, I am Japanese. You're right on the name though, changed it on my first alternate life. Wanted something that rolls off the tongue better.” She sticks out a tongue at him. He snorts at her childishness. After a few beats he continues, “I was born in the UK though.”

“Ah. So, no British accent?” She interrupts.

“No,” he said unamused as Aryah laughs at her own stupid joke. “But yeah I was born somewhere in the UK, didn't really bother knowin' the details since my parents travelled 'round Europe a lot.”

“You moved with them?”

He nods. “’Specially when I was a kid.” He kicks up a bit of sand in front of him. Aryah squint her eyes. “After junior high they shipped me off to my aunt in Japan. Lived with her up ‘til university.”

She takes a cautious peak at him, “Is that when–”

“No, no. Not yet,” he pauses, “I finished uni and moved to the city after a job offer. Then got an itch to travel so I scratched it.” This time he kicked the sand up too high, the small breeze blew it back to his face. Dejection wraps around his figure after he fails to dodge. “Ended up with the wrong crowd until...”

Aryah squeezes his hand to offer him some comfort. Masaru smiles, clear in his eyes he didn’t want to talk about his past anymore.

“And that's that. I was a ‘lil try hard city boy who thought he could take on the world. But couldn't. You?”

She thought carefully of who she was before all this.

It hurts to think of the ones she _willingly_ left behind. “I'm the third oldest on my dad's side and the oldest on my mom's side, 4 siblings followed after me. _Years_ spanning between each one.”

“That's.. a lot.”

“Not really. My mom's the last wife and my older siblings all have their own jobs and families. So we kinda grew up as a somewhat normal family unit.”

Masaru quirks an eyebrow. “'Somewhat'?”

Aryah just shrugs. “Let's say the Asian mindset of ‘family comes first’ was the mindset drilled into me when I started working.”

It was his turn to squeeze her hand. A small smile tugs on her lips.

“So you? What? Got tired of it?”

“Not of that. I mean, a bit. But mostly,” her face scrunches, finding the right words. “Mostly how my brain decided to keep telling me I wasn't going to be anything other than their cash cow.”

He rubbed circles with his thumb on the back of her hand. His face looks distant but Aryah knew he was just thinking on what to say next. She read him like an open book.

She decided to keep going, interrupting his thoughts, wanting to get over her sob story. Fast.

“It wasn't bad, really.” He gave her a pointed look, “No really! I was going to my therapist and taking my meds on time. I loved teaching to the point that I looked forward to seeing my students, even though they’re brats. I loved being there in class.”

She doesn't know if Masaru realizes that he stopped walking and was squeezing her hand a little too hard. He looks at her, with his head tilted slightly, waiting for her. She sighs.

“It just so happens that my desire to die wasn't held back by any of that.”

They stand in silence for a while. She finishes her story.

“I was still… tired.” _Of living_.

Masaru hands her sword over. She holds it by her side. Their hands never leaving each other. The sun slowly sets.

“I'm glad you died,” he started. She opens her mouth, a ‘what-the-fuck?’ look already on her face but he held up his hands in defense, briefly leaving her hand only to come back to it again. “I meant from your last life!”

She lets him slide. He didn’t know of what she lost from her life before this.

_No use getting angry of something he isn’t at fault for._

“Sorry,” he continues, “it's just been lonely being the only one here that has this kinda past. Y'know?”

“Yeah… I know.”

The two stood there, enjoying the silence around them. Aryah never thought she’d find someone in the same boat as her. She thought it was some freak accident that led her down this path, but meeting Masaru gave her the comfort that maybe she really wasn’t meant to be anything special.

“C'mon, let's go home.”

She beams at him as he tugs on her hand towards home.

_Maybe just being here is enough._

“Just thought o' somethin' for tomorrow I think you’ll love.” He tells her, excitement filling him.

Aryah thinks she'll stay here too, with Masaru, and stop trying to leave her mark in a world she knows so well, but so little at the same time.


	4. fate.

**Two Years Later**

**Grum Town, Pink Point Island**

Aryah decided to settle into her new life without interfering with any major events in it. Though there hasn’t really been any of the sort in her time here.

She found that she woke up to a world where the infamous Monkey D. Luffy hasn’t sailed into his great adventure just yet. Judging from the news around this area, it seems that a certain freckled faced rookie is taking the Grand Line in a storm before the rubber kid takes his turn. She blocks a certain death from creeping into her memories.

This isn’t her story to fool around with.

Double checking her knowledge of the Strawhats’ adventure in this part of the Grand Line, she took the time to figure whether there was a chance of meeting them in the future. Getting her hands on a log pose, discretely and efficiently gathering information on the pathway her island resides within Paradise, Aryah was able to determine there was no chance of even breathing the same air as they will. She thanks the ten years she spent part of a revolution in her second reincarnation for keeping herself out of Navy prison. There’d been very close calls of them seeing her snooping around their ships.

Of course, she couldn’t take her faulty memory of their story as a hundred percent certainty, but she still saw this as a sign. A sign that what Masaru said about leaving their marks rang some truth. It could be the reason why they woke up and kept waking up after their deaths. No grandiose transformation nor adventure was in store for them. They just needed to live life as is.

That thought bothered her.

It’s not that she doesn’t want to do that. Hell, she longs for a life just hers to live.

No rebellion, no war, no secret organizations that keep pulling her into the fray. _Nothing._

She’s happy with nothing. Aryah can’t lose anything with nothing to start with.

But something about that “nothing” bothers her. The past two years have been riddling her with fear and doubt, as if something’s missing from her life that she needs to have.

She doesn’t like that.

Aryah sighs at her mind’s boggled thoughts. She pinches herself and takes a deep breath before she opens the doors to her dojo. Her young students’ bright faces light up her morning.

“Well, seems like everyone’s excited huh?”

Screams of joy and laughter fills her ears and lessens the weight in her heart. “Everyone ready for another ‘grueling’ training session with me?”

She heartily laughs as her students gather towards their respective places, cheering and pumping their fists in the air, excited for her to teach them new ways to “kick some ass” as one of them calls it.

“Okay, okay! Settle down. We’ll start with some basics then build onto them for some new moves, yeah?”

Her heart soars as they all turn to her with radiance clear on their faces. “Yes, Teacher!”

The air of excitement and building security fills the room as her students vigorously perfect their defenses and get creative with their attacks. Sounds of laughter rings in the room as more and more of them continue to show off to their friends, also teaching each other how to cover their weaknesses.

Aryah never thought she’d have such a peaceful morning like this ever again. She reminds herself to go visit Masaru and his husband after classes end.

The day after she opened up to Masaru about her original life, he introduced her to a well-known carpenter in their town, Leo, one he seemed to go beet-red for and stuttering after. She made sure to arrange a date after she saw how the latter gave her friend some not-so-subtle lingering looks.

Her two friends helped Aryah start her dojo after Masaru learned her love for teaching, saying that her blade would rust just being carried around how she did.

Granted that what she taught back in her original life were not in any way related to swordsmanship (she was a genetics TA), and she admits she’s no master swordswoman, but Aryah still knew how to handle swords. Courtesy of her short lived third life as some sort of god of war, she learned to love the thrill of close combats and the feel of her old sabre in her hand.

Aryah thanks her meat suit’s preferential use of a similar single-edged curved blade, but its weight and the required handling techniques still oftentimes throw her off.

Her mind springs her back to when she thought of that particular katana as her “prized possession” just as she finished showing a new defense roll to her students, almost messing it up.

_Weird._

“Teacher?”

She faces one of her youngest students, Nimaél, as she tugs on Aryah’s shirt. “Yes, Nima?”

The young girl’s brown eyes dart side to side, before beckoning Aryah to come closer. The red head bows to the little girl’s height that only had her clutching onto Aryah’s clothing just a little tighter after grabbing her sleeve by then.

This worries Aryah.

Nimaél mumbles, “Can I stay here after class?”

Aryah’s heart clenches at the sight of the terrified child. Rage boils just beneath her concern. She swallows the lump in her throat and controls her breathing. “Of course, Nima. You can.”

Patting Nimaél’s head, Aryah gestures for one of her older students to take the young girl with them. Nima gives a tight-lipped smile before sauntering over to her older classmate.

Aryah clenches and unclenches her hand, trying to release the tension that built in her shoulders. She takes another deep breath.

She hates being reminded of the lives these children have, but it makes her all the more grateful for Masaru and Leo’s effort in building her school and working hard to protect the children.

The dojo functions as a weird mixed martial arts and weapons training center for poor kids, free of charge. Their town may be well off enough to attract pirates and a few marines at sea, but that doesn’t mean it eradicated poverty. Money flows through the rich but not even scraps come by to the lowest of the low. This comes with it a violence and animosity she knows all too well within the community. All in the name of survival.

She initially wanted to use her dojo as a training area of sorts as preparation for the winter season, when it seemed that more pirates came onto the island.

With that, she could’ve tried out bounty hunting to get some funds to repay her happy couple and spoil their daughter, Shay (who’s also her goddaughter). The rest she’d give to the families in the slums of town; the ones that needed it more than she did.

She wondered how is it that no one tries to help them out.

Once her second winter on the island came, she got her answer. Aryah saw _exactly_ how some of those families got a little extra for themselves to last through the winter. It sickened her to her core. It made her hate the upper class in this world even more.

Because the filthy rich were literally that; _filthy._

And Aryah wasn’t above killing animals who preyed on the weak just to satiate their lust for little kids. She’s killed in her past lives for much lesser than that.

_I’m no saint._

Besides, it seems like her meat suit already got a bounty price strapped to her head; Salazar Aryah, it said. Epithet: the Red Reaper.

She raised an eyebrow at the name but brushed it off. Aryah’s been in weirder shit. A name twin just gives her convenience. And what’s an added number to ‘Salazar’s’ death count, if she was already a criminal?

Unless she wasn’t a murderer, and that, well – Aryah will figure out later. She got a little too preoccupied dealing with pedophiles and rapists and dumping their bodies in the ocean to care for such a trivial thing.

From then, Aryah ended up using her dojo to house the children she was able to save, teaching them, and others, to defend themselves if ever they find themselves in those situations again. That’s also how she found Shay, and Aryah still cries every time she remembers the little child’s face when Masaru and Leo decided to adopt the only other person that stole their hearts.

And she cries too when the image of Nimaél begging her not to touch her family comes back to her. The little girl still loved them despite their thriving business in town square that included dancing of sorts.

Nima simply wanted to be away from her house when certain… patrons that requires a bit more than just dancing visits and asks for her older siblings.

Aryah welcomes the young girl to her school any time she needed refuge.

It’s times like these that are the reason why Aryah can’t be happy with a life of _nothing_.

* * *

As some of her students go home, and most retire upstairs into the living quarters of the dojo, Aryah and Nima set out to grab a few ingredients for tonight’s feast.

Her and her students had planned for a small birthday celebration and “graduation” of sorts for one of their older friends. He recently got accepted into the navy, and he starts training with them by the end of the week.

Aryah has a few qualms with his choice of career, but having the thought of him escaping his abusive parents and moving on with his life had her stomping on and shoving her concerns down under.

She knows how justice works in this world and its crookedness. She wonders what’ll shape her student’s idea of true justice. He’s a man of integrity, but will he still be so when power comes into his hands?

Aryah chooses to trust him in making the right decisions. It’s his life to lead after all.

“Teacher, look! There’s a sale of produce over there!”

Pulled out of her reverie Aryah sees Nimaél running to a busy food stall, waving for her to come faster. She laughs when the stall owner got surprised by an overexcited girl listing off all the things they need.

“Oi, kid. How’re you gon’ pay for all this? Where’s ya ma?”

Squeezing past grumbled customers, Aryah places her hand on the beaming child. Nima points accusingly at the stall owner.

“You think I don’t have money huh?”

Sticking out her tongue, Nima looks to Aryah before continuing to grab some vegetables and herbs. Each produce she takes, Nima adds up their prices and cheekily exclaims each total she reaches.

Aryah smiles apologetically to the clearly annoyed seller.

She’ll have to come back here another day and properly apologize if she doesn’t want to get banned from the stalls.

_They’ve got a pretty tight knit group here._

Aryah sees Nima grin, then proudly exclaims, “Two hundred and fifty-two berry! That’s our total Mister!”

People who’ve overhead the whole scene quietly chuckles as Nimaél reaches into Aryah’s small pouch and count the money they owe. She looks to Aryah first to confirm she has the right amount, who nods at her student, then the little child holds out the bills abruptly to as high as she can reach above the stall for its owner. The sickeningly sweet sarcastic smile planted on the small child’s face had Aryah holding in her laughter, having trouble schooling her own features.

“Here’s two fifty-five Mister, change of three berries please?”

The stall owner grumbles as he reaches into his apron pockets. He hands Nimaél the change. “There, you brat.”

He looks to Aryah, “Teach ya kid some manners.”

Aryah nods, gently pulling Nima along while trying to carry the bags of ingredients that her student’s hogging to herself. “Sorry, she just doesn’t like being doubted. I’ll talk to her.”

Turning to another stall, Aryah catches a cowboy hat that seems to mock her from the corner of her eye. She stops in her tracks.

An eerily, almost forgotten, familiar laugh gives chills down Aryah’s spine.

“I think she was plenty polite!” its voice yells. Aryah stiffly turns toward its owner.

“Ain’t that right, little mum?” he says.

She almost pukes from the sharp pain suddenly coming from her head.

Portgas D. Ace stares right at her, a big grin swallowing his face while Aryah’s own probably mirrors that of a dead blobfish.

She really didn’t know if she was cursed or if fate has a grudge on her for something she’d done or that maybe some bored entity just likes kicking her in the ass every now and then. Because having this pirate sporting a goofy fucking grin at her and Nima like he’s an old friend greeting them after years of separation is slowly breaking her.

Yeah, Aryah doesn’t have time for this shit.

The red head thinks that maybe in different circumstances she would’ve been elated to see Ace alive and here, right in front of her. But him being here means death lurks around the corner.

And she doesn’t want to go through that again. Not when she doesn’t know if she’ll even _stay_ dead. So, she looks to Nima then to Ace, then back to the clearly confused child that now looks to her with her own version of "what's-wrong-with-you?" on her face.

Aryah thinks of the best course of action to take with the Pirate King's son staring right at her.

Before the latter could ask her what’s wrong, and before her head gives her bright ideas that plummets her straight to another life, Aryah carries Nima on her back, groceries forgotten, and bolts back home.

She left Ace all the more confused, leaving him no choice but to carry her stuff and ask for her address. That was her first mistake.

He didn't get to find her as night fell (and she had to resort to using up what's in Masaru's pantry for the party), but it's only a few weeks later that her actions come back to bite her in the ass.


	5. not again.

Aryah’s had a rough day. Scratch that, she’s been having a rough week, and today decided to fuck her over even more.

Weeks since her encounter with Ace had her, or rather the body she occupies, spiraling into strange bouts of fiery wrath and consistent brashness that Aryah isn’t used to. It wasn’t exactly strange for her to be feeling like… well, not herself. It was a common problem that occurs whenever she died and occupies a meat suit. Old habits or personalities of the original body’s owner show up shortly after she occupies their corpse. It spans for a few days, if she’s lucky, it ends in a mere few hours.

It’s not a big deal for her, having to deal with some minor nuisances. She can control it anyways. But what’s bothering Aryah is, why now?

She can’t figure out why she’s having a reaction after two damn years of living in this body, and why start after meeting Ace?

It wasn’t like she sat there and spoke to the child for hours on end, nor fucking touched him to get a reaction so drastic that she can’t even get up from her bed some days because of the unbelievable anger and guilt and _sadness_ that wracks her entire body. The littlest things set her off, she’s been neglecting her responsibilities at her dojo, and even ignoring her friends.

_Just what the hell was ‘Salazar’ like before she died?_

Aryah’s exhausted. And today isn’t helping her case. Not when she’s faced with scum.

Nimaél was staying over at Masaru’s household playing with Shay, when a woman claiming she’s bought the student for her husband confronted Aryah in her house.

Pure rage stirs in the redhead as she stalks the woman, blade ready to slice her into a million pieces. The fucking audacity of this woman to come up to her and demand the life of a child for her disgusting excuse of a man forces Aryah’s control to crumble.

She’s itching to dump both the vile woman and her husband in the deepest depths of the sea, that in this rare instance she allows the now familiar bloodlust ring within her being. She feels herself slowly unhinge.

_A voice beckons her to go further._

“How disgusting of you,” she monotonously fires.

The woman before her begs for her life.

Aryah raises her blade.

“May the seas have mercy on your wicked soul when I’m done with you.”

A burning hand reaches out. Portgas D. Ace stops her.

He grabs Aryah’s arm as it came down on her prey, yanking her back to sanity. Aryah stares at the freckled pirate, dumbfounded.

_He’s still here?_

He asked her what in the world she thought she was doing, but Aryah couldn’t reply to him. Millions of thoughts run through her head as her eyes flicker from the running woman escaping Aryah’s slowly dissipating wrath, to the freckled boy in front of her.

_I thought he left already._

She takes a step towards the woman’s direction, silently hoping she’s seen an illusion, but the iron grip tightens its hold on her arm just a little harder. Ace asks her again just what exactly she was trying to do here.

Without a better response to the pirate, Aryah swings her sword at him to get him to back off. She doesn’t have time to be messing with him, nor he with her.

Ace dodges her attack just as quickly as she threw it. He almost knocks her down with a swing of his fist to her jaw, but she locks his retreating arm within her elbow, jamming him in the face with the hilt of her sword. Blood trickles down his face.

Ace quickly recovers from her counter, body bursting in flames to get her away. He knows he can subdue her but he didn’t expect her to match his reflexes. He considers trying out his fruit’s capabilities on her.

Just as he advances towards her, hands burning bright, she moves to overthrow his balance, gingerly avoiding his flames, and secures him in a headlock with her scabbard. She feels his body temperature steadily climb.

_Fucking hot headed little shit._

“Can you calm the shi-” A flaming hand come up to her face. She barely dodges it.

Aryah didn’t know how much longer until he got serious with his punches, and how long before she gets charred by him, so she did what she could to get Ace to stand down. She really doesn’t need this right now.

“Fucking calm the hell down!” Another fist. Another block.

“She was trying t-” His boot slams into her hip, dropping her like a sack of rice.

_That’s gonna bruise._

The rookie pirate bent to grab a fistful of her shirt when Aryah slammed her leg up to his groin. Ace fell to his knees beside her, groaning in pain. She coughed a laugh. _Fucking kid._

“Will you listen,” she started. Ace gave her a glare. She could care less, “Be stubborn for all I care, but that bitch you decided to save was fucked in the head.”

Aryah stood to grab her thrown swords, her sides burning with pain from the blows. She decides to take a cold bath when she gets to Masaru’s place. “She said she bought my student for her husband.”

Before Ace could react, she kept going, “I wanted to slice her and her man up for even fucking breathing in my direction.”

He sends her a horrid face that’s mixed with disgust and apology.

With her sword trained on him, Aryah raises a brow as he gets up. She may love the dude’s character but that doesn’t mean she trusts him to trust her. She doesn’t know the Spade captain Ace.

After a few coughs, the pirate captain straightens and holds out his hand towards the redhead. He gives her an apologetic smile and introduces himself, “I’m sorry for misunderstanding the situation. My name is Ace.”

Aryah narrows her eyes to the hand offered to her, as if it was offending her. _I can just walk away._

Ace’s cheeky grin and outstretched hand irritates her.

_Just walk away._

She gives him a look over, again and again as she secures her sheathed sword on her back. It gives her the needed security she was losing hold of.

_Yeah, just walk away._

_Walk._

_Away._

She doesn’t.

Aryah hesitantly reaches for Ace’s hand, saying sorry for… well, for his balls. “Name’s Aryah. Salazar Aryah.”

He gives her a surprised look until he grins (again) and holds onto her hand with both hands. His voice reaches an octave higher when he exclaims to her, “Salazar? It’s you! I’ve been looking all over for you!”

Aryah focuses on his eyes that screamed pride and gratefulness she doesn’t even know what for. She confusedly asks him, “What do you mean?”

“For taking care of Luffy! Back in Foo-”

“Right there! The redhead. She’s the one that attacked me!”

Aryah’s world shatters as she falls to the ground, blood dripping from her chest just as she heard the end of a gun’s echo. Ace catches her shoulder as his grip on her hand tightens, panic evident on his features. Aryah feels that sickening feeling of being stretched and pulled into another life yet again.

One last thought stayed with her as she drifted.

_How in the world did this meat suit meet Luffy already?_


End file.
